Science Funding

The ALS social media movement will be analyzed, studied and debated for years to come as a precedent for successful fundraising. For the scientific community the big question will be: is it enough for us to popularize our causes in a lighthearted way to raise funding?

The Division of Particles and Fields in the American Physical Society started a community planning exercise in 2013 to help plan the next 10 years of particle physics investments in light of the Higgs discovery, new information about neutrinos, and new information about dark energy and the accelerating universe.

When we think of science for health, we think first -- and invest mostly -- in curing diseases once they have occurred. This is vitally important. However, the greatest return on investment often comes from the science of preventing the disease in the first place.

When word comes from the deep that the sub is done with its work and is returning to the surface, the LRT divers suit back up and reverse the process -- essentially landing the sub on the barge underwater like a fighter jet hitting the deck of an aircraft carrier.

As members of Congress felt the first effects of the sequester on tarmacs at Dulles and Reagan months ago, they moved quickly to end the FAA furloughs. However, they neglected to act upon the far more serious threat facing the country under sequestration. That threat is an impending R&D collapse.

More important than just the money, however, is that private-sector foundations can afford to fund more high-risk, high-return research without the badgering and bickering that too often comes from Congress.

Launched with approximately $100 million in initial funding, BRAIN is a high-risk, high-reward effort that will provide basic but significant research insights in neuroscience and will have a major applied impact on health and human well-being far into the future.

Real progress comes from young renegades thinking outside the box willing to take risks to challenge the status quo. It is this kind of science that gets lost in the shuffle every time the giant pork machine dispenses its largesse to the usual suspects.

The science enterprise of the country -- the sweeping investments in research that has powered the U.S. economy for much of the last 60 years -- is seriously threatened by the havoc that sequestration could bring.

Protecting healthy soil and water resources and reclaiming abused and contaminated resources are essential to ensuring that millions of people alive today, as well as millions yet unborn, will have enough to eat throughout this century. This is not a far-off problem.

Right away, everyone wants to know what's to be cut. Whatever you all settle on cutting, it should not be science. Investment in science is investment in innovation. New ideas are what keep the U.S. economy driving forward.

Think about this for a moment: Many baseball players make more than is awarded by a program in the National Science Foundation that gives us the tools and understanding to manage some of humanities' biggest ecological and environmental issues.

While we need to celebrate the success stories in medical research that allow us to carry on our lives, we have more work to do. We must ensure that we continue to have a robust flow of scientific discoveries that we can then translate into better health.

Absent a commitment by our government to the direct support of basic biomedical research, our country will be unable to inspire young people to choose science as a career and will lose the ideas those young people could bring to future discovery.

The pattern of polarizing rhetoric and inability to compromise is sure to continue. However, both Democratic and Republican voters should insist their leaders act and agree to maintain funding for scientific research and development.